Secret Garden
by j.curl
Summary: Everyone has their own. Jinenji is no different. Rated T because I can't imagine a nine year old reading this. Slight edit 51806 because Konekochan was right.


Secret Garden

Jinenji reminisces on the changes in his life. AU, but I suppose it could be considered otherwise as the show has not ended.

**Pairing:** Kagome/Jinenji...kinda

00

Sometimes, late at night, she woke up screaming.

Jinenji held her then, and rocked her like his mother once did to him when he was smaller and could still fit in her embrace. He rocked her in his arms until she fell back to sleep. Those nights he stayed up until she woke again for good in the morning, standing guard just in case the nightmares came again. They hadn't yet, but Jinenji felt it was better to be safe than to be sorry. Kagome was precious to him and he would protect her.

She came wandering to his door two years after they had met, one year after his mother had passed away, and it was the day he had waited for since she screamed in fear of a caterpillar, when she looked into his eyes and he felt alive . He had waited her return for seven hundred and twenty nine days. She was torn and ragged when she came, dressed a decent kimono. The places she was torn and ragged in were on the inside. But that would be fixed. The important thing was that she was here.

It was raining that night, but long after she was inside and dry by the fire her cheeks still glistened with damp.

He asked where her silver-haired friend was.

Her reply was to ask where his mother was.

There was a long silence then while he processed her words and then Jinenji knew he, Inuyasha, and they, the others he never met, had died.

"It wasn't supposed to end this way."

He didn't tell her he was glad it ended this way.

His mind had been conflicted back then; happy that she was with him now, but mournful that she was in so much pain. Jinenji wanted her to stay with him and show him more kindness, more love, but he felt selfish.

But that was then.

Now they lived quietly together, tending the garden of herbs along with the ones of foodstuffs and making the occasional bit of money with remedies for the surrounding villages and the all-to-infrequent travelers passing through. There was little talk between them, but the silence was as comfortable as it could be. She was still sad, but she trusted him.

Once, early in their time together, a man had cornered her in the hut when Jinenji had gone to the forest. He came back to see the man standing over her with his shirt on the floor and his pants halfway off. Kagome was in a fetal position with her eyes shut so tightly her forehead was crinkled like an old woman's. Jinenji killed the man with one blow. He had never felt such an anger before, such fear that something could happen to her and he wouldn't be there to save her. From then on she was never out of his line of vision save when she bathed. And even then he stood watch.

Once, he asked her why she didn't return to her home village. She told him simply, quietly that she could never, ever return. Tears came again and he was sorrowful that he had made her cry. They had been doing so well.

Once, she stopped in the middle of stirring a pot and asked him a question.

"Am I...too lost to be saved?"

He told her she wasn't lost, she was here with him and she shook her head.

Once, he gave her three flowers, a meager bouquet, and told her he loved her. She slapped the trio of posies out of his hand to fall to the ground and walked away. Later, she apologized, and told him he deserved better. He wanted to tell her there was no one in the world better, but he knew she wouldn't like it. One day, he hoped, he would tell her he loved her and she would accept him.

There was one thing she needed no prompting to speak about. She told him bits and pieces sometimes, of what had happened to the others she traveled with, but more often it was the things they had done together when they had lived. Jinenji was jealous, but it made her happier so he listened. He hoped it would heal her like his herbs couldn't.

She told him these things only inside the hut; she said it wasn't safe to let the words escape outside.

Sometimes, he would do silly things like put his hat on backwards. He only righted it when she noticed, correcting him with a small smile. He knew that these were the kind of smiles worth dying for. But more importantly, they were the smiles worth living for.

So Jinenji and Kagome lived together; he looked out for her and in return she stayed with him, accepting and unafraid like no one but his mother had been.

Kagome started tossing and turning in her sleep, whimpering and crying out for people with the names Inuyasha, Shippou, Miroku, Sango, Rin, and Kouga--the people she once stayed with--and drawing Jinenji out of his thoughts. She began to scream with tears leaking from her closed lids.

And so he picked her up, bedding and all, and prayed there would be many more nights he would be able to do so.

00

I couldn't help thinking that catagory for this pairing...odd as it is, needed some filling up. Besides, I like Jinenji.

...but not as much as Buyo! (sorry Jinenji)

Buyo fans, unite!


End file.
